The low-key screwball tone of Roshan Sethi’s “7 Days” is an efficient reminder that characters don’t have to love one another a complete lot for her actors to have nice chemistry. Take the high-strung Ravi (Karan Soni) and the unamused Rita (Geraldine Viswanathan), two Indian-American twentysomethings within the organized marriage relationship world, who’re caught collectively when the shelter-in-place takes impact proper in the midst of their awkward first date. First, it was dangerous sufficient that Ravi took Rita to a reservoir with no water, and even drier dialog. Now he can’t depart her cluttered house place. He has to sleep on her sofa and uncovers extra of the anti-traditional lifestyle that wasn’t in her profile (she eats meat, drinks beer, and casually leaves her vibrator on her restroom sink). Proper when he realizes that no manner might this girl be his future spouse, he’s kind of trapped along with her. It’s an intelligent premise, and this film spins some candy comedy out of it.
It is a reward when each actor in a two-hander like this is a lot enjoyable to look at, on their very own or in shared scenes. Viswanathan has nice comedic vitality within the position, in that she’s so laid again however doesn’t miss a pointy one-liner in her banter with the much more intense Ravi. When Ravi tries to sound authoritative in her home, Rita can shut it down in a millisecond; the identical occurs when he tries to contextualize cuddle with why he desires to get married. “You don’t should be married to cuddle with somebody,” she says, gaining our affection with every dose of actuality she delivers.
The film can be a showcase for Soni, who co-wrote the movie with director Sethi. He’s humorous, mild, soft-spoken, and endearing all through, earnestly making jokes about his character’s neuroses or conventional fixations, whereas depicting how somebody will be open to new experiences and views. A part of his arc comes from seeing issues extra her manner—he wears her sweatpants and lazy shirts by means of his keep, in a humorous metaphor.
“7 Days” has a general sweetness that retains its charisma for its 85-minute runtime, with an agile directorial eye that makes positive the back-and-forth scenes of them speaking have sufficient life in them. (The fixed California daylight pouring into Rita’s house would not harm both.) And there’s one thing to the plotting as effectively, consistently making you surprise how the story will overcome its subsequent downside. At first, it’s that they’re too reverse to love one another, so how will the script, if it desires to, take us there? After which what occurs when Ravi has to go on different digital dates whereas at Rita’s? Just a few extra stunning conflicts enter into the combo, whereas the story nonetheless stays true to its most important on-screen casting of solely two leads. It’s spectacular, particularly as it is simple for equally minimal manufacturing to expire of concepts.
The film is bookended by Zoom testimonials from real-life married Indian {couples} who met by means of organized marriages and have very candy phrases to share about their companions and the way in which they bought collectively. In this film’s earnest manner, it desires to make a case for the method of attending to know somebody in an extra direct vogue, like how Ravi is attempting to do. I wished extra from this advocacy, however, “7 Days” does a heartfelt job in exhibiting with its documentary parts that it may possibly work, and with its narrative focus the way it would possibly work.
Not for nothing, “7 Days” joins the restricted ranks of Good Covid-Period Cinema, and applies sure anxieties concerning the interval of shelter-in-place creatively, without manipulation. That’s no small feat; neither is making some film magic out of two actors dancing across the query that, when simply elusive sufficient, all the time makes for the story: Will they or received’t they?